"Faces, not flowers," D.H. Lawrence told Clare. It's all about portraits and details, more grit and less beauty. Or maybe just less an outline, more reality. I don't know. It stuck with me; it felt important. Faces, not flowers. My romantic view of the world.
Cari came to visit two weeks ago. It was lovely having her here, before the official start of term, when we could wander the streets and go out for tea, make dinner, drink wine, dress up. All the things we do anyway, but with a relative calm attached. It really is work hard and play hard, she observed. Indeed. So nice, as well, to see the city with a visitor. Oxford is always beautiful--it's impossible to ignore that, even in the cold and the damp and the rain--but sometimes showing it off to someone new reinforces that fact, helps to remind me of where we are. I love the way the buildings around Radcliffe Square look all lit up in the night.
I keep saying there's so much I want to see and do here; that I feel I've barely scratched the surface, both in Oxford and out. So therefore, instead of merely fretting about it, I've decided every weekend I will do something new and adventurous. Alex and Amy--you will be dragged along. I want to see the villages on Oxford's outskirts and wander through the parks. Drink in new pubs, sit in meadows. Walk down streets I've never been. I want to go to London at least once a month. I want to actually do these things and not just say them. I fluctuate between holing up in my flat in sweats, piles of books and bottles of wine for company, sleeping all day and staying up all night, feeling as if we'll be here forever, and panicking over the thought that there's still so much more I want.
"I don't know if I'm having the life changing experience I thought I would be," I confessed to Amy. "You are having a life-changing experience," she affirmed. And you know, that's probably true. I'm past the stage of mere affection for this place, and am starting to fall in love with it. I love my flatmates, I enjoy my tutorials, I'm thrilled about romping around Europe for a month. It is life-changing. Maybe not in the cinematic, in-one-fell-swoop way one might tend to envision things before packing up and leaving home, but in the quiet, more important ways. The ways you learn to sustain yourself, the friendships you make, the day to day experiences you have. I can't wait to see Oxford in the summer, when its warm.
If getting my MFA at Oxford isn't an option, then maybe I'll apply for literature. I feel more at home here, in certain ways, than I ever did in New York.
I will leave you with this, an excerpt of a conversation I had last week over welcome-back-to-Oxford drinks:
Her: "So, what period are writing about for your historical fiction tutorial?"
Me: "The Left Bank in the 20's--the whole expat scene."
Her: "Oh, yeah, yeah I can see it now...So, do you believe in reincarnation?"
Me: "Uhhhhhh."
Her: "Because, now that I look at you, I totally see it. It totally fits. Yeah. Yeah, you were there, and you died young. I don't know of what, but you died young. I don't want to give too much away."
Me: "Uhhh." *gulps wine*
Goodnight.
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1 comment:
I have said this before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, but it really makes me happy-sad to read about your time in Oxford.
Also, i would say push push push to go back to Ox for grad school; I didn't think about it until it was too late to go back right away. I didn't know how good it was for me and how much I'd missed it until I'd left. Now I'll have to wait until at least next year to apply.
This sounds so death and doom, but I don't mean that, there's happiness in NYC and Fairfield and SLC and everywhere. Just wish I was in Oxford with you!
Love.
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